After 9/11, the New York Times’ inaugurated a long-running series called “Portraits of Grief,” featuring short obituaries of people who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and in the Flight 93 crash. It was a way to put poignant, sometimes unbearably painful human faces on the tragedy, in which 2,977 people were killed. (More have succumbed in the years since due to 9/11-related illnesses). Now, as the novel coronavirus takes an even more enormous human toll, the Times finds itself in a similar position, and an arguably more daunting one.

“The obits desk was flooded,” said Carolyn Ryan, an assistant managing editor whose responsibilities include newsroom staffing. “Keeping up with the deaths, including the high number of elderly cultural figures from New York, is a big challenge.” The number of standard Times obits, on someone like, say, Patricia Bosworth or John Prine, had essentially doubled almost overnight. At the same time, there was a desire to also capture the loss of the lesser known—a beloved Brooklyn teacher whose life was cut short, a Tulsa gas station worker whose son was born just a month ago.

Journalists from different departments have been drafted into the effort. Style staffers Penelope Green, Steven Kurutz, and Denny Lee, as well as food writer Kim Severson, have all been temporarily reassigned to obits, bringing the number of writers there from four to eight. Others from around the organization have been pitching in as well—a European soccer correspondent here, a Florida–based national reporter there, and so on. “I remember on a Friday I started calling writers all over the country to see if they would help,” said Ryan.

“Portraits of Grief” eventually ran to a total of more than 2,400 entries, but 9/11 was a finite catastrophe. By April 15, the confirmed U.S. death toll from COVID-19 had surpassed 26,000, with more than 128,000 deaths around the world. The Times will only be able to crack a fraction of those, but other news outlets are also telling stories of the deceased. On Sunday, the Washington Post published a feature about the first 1,000 victims in the U.S. “Behind every reported death, every data point on a curve or chart,” the piece notes, “is a name and a story: preachers and politicians, health care workers and teachers, police officers and prisoners, parents and children.”

“Portraits of Grief” was eventually adapted into a book. It’s possible “Those We’ve Lost” could also be expanded into some such project down the road. For starters, the Times has put together an interactive component that will debut on Thursday. As Ryan said, “At a moment like this, a news organization not only shows you its investigative drive and expert reporting, it also shows you its heart.”